Marguerite Yourcenar was a
Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina
and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Academie
francaise, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.

Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour in Brussels, Belgium,
to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour, of French bourgeois descent, and a
Belgian mother, Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne, of Belgian nobility,
who died ten days after her birth. She grew up in the home of her
paternal grandmother.

Yourcenar's first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929. She translated Virginia Woolf's ”The Waves” over a 10-month period in 1937.

In 1939 Yourcenar's intimate companion at the time, the literary
scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick, invited the writer to the
United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Yourcenar lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College.

Yourcenar was bisexual;
she and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick's
death in 1979. After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they
bought a house in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine where they lived for decades.

In 1951, she published, in France, the novel Memoires d'Hadrien, which she had been writing with pauses for a decade. The novel was an
immediate success and met with great critical acclaim. In this novel,
Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the
ancient world, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius, the son and heir of Antoninus Oius,
his successor and adoptive son. The Emperor meditates on his past,
describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for Antinous, and his philosophy. The novel has become a modern classic.

In 1980, Yourcenar was the first female member elected to the Academie francaise.
An anecdote tells of how the bathroom labels were then changed in this
male-dominated institution: "Messieurs | Marguerite Yourcenar" (Gents / Marguerite Yourcenar).
One of the most respected writers in the French language, she published
many novels, essays, and poems, as well as three volumes of memoirs.

Yourcenar's house on Mount Desert Island, Petite Plaisance, is now a museum dedicated to her memory. She is buried across the sound in Somesville, Maine.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Yourcenar

How
Wang-Fô was saved

The old painter,
Wang-Fô and his disciple Ling, wandered the roads of
the Han Empire.

They advanced slowly
since Wang-Fô would stop at night to
contemplate the starry firmament and during the day, the dragon
flies. They carried little since Wang-Fô loved the
image of
things, not things in themselves. No object in the world
seemed
to him worthy of possession if it weren’t for brushes,
pigments,
jars of lacquer and rolls of silk or rice paper. They
were
poor; Wang-Fô traded his paintings for a bit of food while
despising even small silver coin.

His disciple, Ling,
walked heavily under the weight of a bag full of
sketches; he doubled his back respectfully as if he carried the
firmament of the skies; as that sack—to
Ling’s eyes—was
full
of mountains covered in snows, with rivers in spring and the face
of
the moon in summer.

Ling hadn’t
been born to walk along side the old man in whose
power was the aurora, was caught the twilight. His father had
been a dealer in gold; his mother the only child of a jade dealer whose
estate and legacy he had left her with a curse, at her not having
been the son he wanted. Ling had grown in a house where
riches
did away with insecurities. That existence, carefully tended,
had
turned him timid: he was afraid of insects, of storm and tempest and of the features on the faces of the dead.

When he reached fifteen
years his father found him a bride and he
chose the greatest beauty since the idea of happiness she could provide
his son was a consolation to an age when night had turned to no purpose
but sleep.

Ling’s bride
was as fragile as a reed, infantile as milk,
sweet as saliva, salty as tears. After the wedding
Ling’s
parents took their discretion to the point of dying and their son
was
left in the house painted with cinnabar, alone with his bride who never
left off smiling and the plum tree that flowered pink every
spring.

Ling loved that woman of
limpid heart just as one might love a
mirror never blemished by steam or an amulet that never failed to
protect. He went to the tea houses as was the fashion and
favoured, moderately, dancers and acrobats.

One night in one of these
fashionable tea houses he found himself
accompanied at his table by Wang-Fô. The old man
had drunk
in order to put himself in a state that permitted him the ability to
capture in paint—the drunk. His
head inclined to one side as if
to better judge the distance between his hand and his cup.
The
rice wine untied the tongue of that ancient and taciturn artisan;
that night, Wang talked as if the silence were a wall and his words
destined to spread it with colour.

Thanks’ to him
Ling understood the beauty reflected in the
faces of the drinkers, blurred by the smoke of the hot drink, the
toasted splendour of the skin and meat, licked by the tongue of the
fire that lit them. The exquisite rose stains of spilled wine
on
the tablecloths like withered flower petals. A gust of wind
blew
open a window and the storm penetrated the room.
Wang-Fô
quickly ducked down so that Ling could admire the livid beauty in the
seam of lightning and Ling, astonished, never again feared the
tempest.

Ling paid the old
painter’s bill; Wang-Fô had no money
nor bed nor dwelling, Ling humbly offered refuge. They walked
together, Ling carried a lantern whose light projected a surprising
flash and sparkle in the puddles and that night Ling realized with
astonishment that the walls of his house were no longer the red of
cinnabar as he believed but rather the colour of an orange that has
begun to rot.

In the courtyard
Wang-Fô pointed out the shape of a delicate
bush that no-one had noticed before and compared it to the silhouette
of a young woman drying her hair. In the hallway he walked
slowly
with faltering step, as he was distracted from his purpose by the
wavering path of an ant along the length of the cracks in the wall; and
Ling’s horror of those little creatures vanished.
Then, in that moment, Ling understood Wang-Fô had given him a
soul, a new perception. He put the old man to bed with
respect in
the room his own parents had died.

Wang-Fô had
dreamed for many years of painting a princess of
old, playing the lute under a willow. No woman ever seemed
unreal
enough to model but Ling could be, since he was not a woman.
Later Wang-Fô talked of painting a young Prince tensing a bow
under a tall cedar. No youth of his time was unreal enough to
model but Ling sent his wife to pose with bow and arrow under the
plum tree in the garden. Afterwards Wang-Fô painted
her as
sprite among clouds and she cried as this was a harbinger of
death.

Since Ling preferred
Wang-Fô’s portraits of her to
herself, her face withered like a flower fighting the wind or the
summer rain. One morning they woke to find her hung by her
neck
from the plum tree in full rosen bloom: the length of the silken scarf
that strangled her mixed in her wind-blown hair and she seemed more
svelte than ever, as pure as the beauties sung by poets in times gone,
and Ling never again feared the face of death.
Wang-Fô
painted her one last time because he admired the greenish tone that
dead faces acquire. His disciple, Ling, ground his paints and
the job required such application that he forgot to shed tears.

Ling eventually sold his
slaves, his jade and the koi fish of his
fountain to provide his master jars of violet paint brought all the way
from the Occident. When the house was emptied they left and
Ling closed the doors to his past. Wang-Fô was
tired of the
city where the faces could teach him no more secrets of beauty or
ugliness and, together, master and apprentice, they roved the walks
of the Empire of Han.

Their reputation preceded
them in the villages, the verge, the
thresholds of the fortified castles and beneath the lintels of the
temples where refuged the restless peregrines at the fall of
dusk. It was said Wang-Fô had the power to give
life to his
paintings thanks’ to a last touch of colour he added to their
eyes. The bumpkins turned up to supplicate he paint them a
guardian dog and the lords to ask he paint them soldiers. The
monks honoured him as a wise man while the people feared him like a
witch. Wang was pleased by these differences of opinion that
allowed him to study the different expressions of gratitude, fear and
veneration.

Ling begged their daily
food, watched over the sleep of his teacher and took advantage of his
euphoria to massage his feet. As the
morning threatened and his master still slept he would go out to look
for timid landscape behind the thicket or reed. At night when
the
master, disconsolate or disappointed, threw his brushes to the ground
Ling picked them up and put them away carefully till the inspiration
recaptured Wang-Fô’s soul. When he was
sad and
talked of his old age Ling would smile and point to the robust trunk
of an old Oak. When he was happy and spoke with light-hearted
silliness, Ling would pretend to listen with humility.

One day, as evening set
in, they arrived at the outskirts of at the
Imperial city and Ling looked for accommodation to pass the
night. The old man wrapped himself in his rags and Ling lay
down beside him to offer the heat of his body; springtime had just
arrived and the clay floor was still frozen. As dawn broke
heavy footsteps resonated in the hall of the inn, the fearful whispers
of the inn-keeper were answered in a barbarous shout. Ling
stretched and thought of the rice cake he had stolen for his
master’s alimentation the day before and didn’t
doubt
they came to arrest him and he wondered, who would feed
Wang-Fô
on the morrow ? Who would help him ford the next river ?

The soldiers entered
lanterns first; the light filtered by the coloured paper threw red and
blue patterns
over their leather helmets. The string of a bow vibrated on a
shoulder, and, suddenly, the most ferocious growled without any
reason at all. One put his heavy hand on the nape of
Wang-Fô’s neck who couldn’t avoid noting
how the
colour of his sleeve didn’t go well with the colour of his
jacket.

Helped by his disciple
Wang-Fô followed the soldiers,
faltering over the uneven ground. The tight group moved
forward and the soldiers laughed at those who would, most likely, soon
be
decapitated. At Wang’s questions only
wild and
threatening faces offered response, his tied hands hurt and Ling,
desperate, looked to his master with a smile—a mannerism that was to
him, more gentle than crying.

They arrived at the doors
of the Imperial palace whose violet walls
stood in the plain light-of-day like a piece of twilight. The
soldiers obliged Wang-Fô to cross innumerable square or
circular
rooms each a symbol of the seasons, the cardinal points, the masculine
and the feminine, their length the prerogative of power. The
doors turned on their hinges emitting a musical note, their disposition
such that one could traverse them all from the rise of the sun in the
east to its fall in the west; everything concerted to imply a
super-human power and subtlety; one could perceive the appalling
orders given, and one knew their terrible content was as definitive
as was the wisdom of the past.

Finally the air became
more rare, more scarce, the silence became so
profound that not even the tortured would have dared shout under its
weight. A eunuch lifted a curtain, the soldiers trembled like
girls, and the small group entered where the Son of the Sky sat on
his throne.

It was a hall without
walls upheld by columns of blue stone. A
garden flowered at the other side of the pillars and each little
copse was made of rare species brought from over the seas but none was
perfumed for fear their aroma might disturb the meditation of the
Dragon of the Skies. Out of respect for the silence that
bathed
his thoughts no bird was admitted to the interior of the quarter,
indeed, even the bees had been expulsed. A tall
wall closed
off the garden from the world with the purpose of keeping the wind that
passes over the burst corpses of dogs and the cadavers on the field
of battle, from brushing even the sleeve of the emperor.

The Master of the Sky was
seated on a throne of jade and his hands
were wrinkled like those of an old man though he couldn’t
have
been more than twenty. His clothes were blue to simulate
winter and green to remember spring. His mien was comely but
inscrutable like a mirror set so high it only reflected space—implacable and inexorable
sky.

To his right was his
Minister of perfect pleasures and to his left
his adviser of just torment. As his courtiers, lined up by
the
columns, stretched their hearing to catch the least of the
Emperor’s utterances he had acquired the habit of speaking
always
in the lowest of voices.

Oh Dragon of the Sky,
addressed Wang-Fô, prostrating himself:
I am old, I am poor, I am weak. You are the summer I the
winter. You have ten thousand lives while I have only one and
soon it will be over. What have I done to you? They have tied
hands that have never done you harm.

You ask what you have
done to me old Wang-Fô? Said the Emperor.

His voice was so
melodious that upon hearing it one wanted to
cry. He raised his right hand and the reflection of the floor
of jade turned it to a moss of the sea. Wang-Fô
marvelled
at those long thin fingers and tried to remember if at some time he
had done a portrait so mediocre he merited execution. But not
only couldn’t remember such a crime but thought it highly
improbable as he had hardly stepped into the environs of the court,
always preferring the huts of farmers or, in the cities, the hovels of
prostitutes or the taverns of the piers where the longshoremen fight.

You ask what you have
done to me old Wang-Fô ? Pursued the
Emperor, inclining his thin neck toward the old man who listened to
him: I will tell you. But like poison that cannot enter us
but by
our nine orifices, to put you in the presence of your guilt I will have
to trod the halls of my memory and tell you of my whole life.
My father reunited a collection of your paintings in the most secret
rooms of the palace because he felt the paintings must be protected
from profane stares from which they are not able to lower their
eyes. In those rooms they educated me old Wang-Fô,
disposing of a great solitude in which I was permitted to grow, with
the object of avoiding splashing my candour with the agitated waves of
my future subjects.

No-one was allowed to
pass before my doors for fear their shadows
might extend until they grazed my person. The few servants that were
allowed me, showed themselves as little as possible; the hours turned
in an interminable circle. The colours in your paintings
resuscitated with the dawn and paled in the dusk. At night I
contemplated them when I couldn’t sleep. During ten
long
years of consecutive nights I looked at them… and looked at
them…

During the day, sat on a
rug whose design I knew by heart, resting
my empty hands on the yellow silk of my knees I dreamt of the pleasures
my future promised. I imagined the world with the Empire of
Han
at its centre similar to the plain of my palm cut by the fatal lines of
the five rivers. Around it the five seas where the monsters
are
born and further still the mountains that sustain the sky.

To help me imagine all
this I had your paintings. You made me
believe the sea looked like the vast layer of water in your paintings—so blue that a stone that
fell into its depths
couldn’t but turn to sapphire. That women
didn’t but
open and close like flowers similar to the creatures that advance,
pushed by the breeze along the walks of your gardens and that the
young warriors of slim waist that watch over the borders in our
fortified castles were like arrows that could pierce our
heart.

At sixteen I saw opened
the doors that separated me from the world,
I went up to the terraces to see the clouds but they were less
beautiful than your twilights. I called for my litter and
along
the roads was shaken by the rocks and dust I hadn’t
foreseen. I travelled my provinces without finding your
gardens
filled with women like lightning bugs—those women you painted
whose
bodies were themselves gardens. At the ocean’s rim
I was
disgusted by the sharp rocks and forgotten shells. The blood
of
the executed was less red than the painted pomegranate of your
sketches. The parasites in the villages impeded my ability to
enjoy the beauty of the rice paddies and the live meat of women
revolted me as much as the dead meat hung on hooks at the
butcher’s while the uncouth laughter of my soldiers made me
feel
nausea.

You lied to me old
impostor: the world is no more than a mass of
confused stains thrown to the void by a foolish artist, erased without
cease by our tears.

The Han Empire is not the
most beautiful and I am not an
Emperor. The only Empire worth the ruling is the one you
penetrate, old Wang-Fô, by the walk of a thousand turns and
the
ten thousand colours. Only you rule over mountains whose
snows
never melt, over fields whose narcissi never wither.

With this,
Wang-Fô, I have found the torment of your curse, am
disgusted by all I own and wish for all I cannot have. To
lock
you in the only cell from which you cannot escape I have decided to
burn your eyes since they are the magic doors to your realm.
And
since your hands are the two roads with their ten bifurcations that
lead you to the heart of your kingdom I will have them cut
off.
Do you understand me old Wang-Fô ?

Upon hearing the sentence
the disciple Ling pulled a gap-toothed
blade from his belt and threw himself on the Emperor, but long before
his lunge reached the Son of the Sky two guards caught him up and the
Dragon-king smiled as he added in a whisper: I hate you also old
Wang-Fô because you have been loved—kill the dog !

Ling quickly jumped
backward so as not to offend his master with the
splashing of his blood, and one of the guards lifted his sabre and
Ling’s head was separated from his body like a plucked
flower. The soldiers picked up the pieces of his body and
Wang-Fô, though desperate, couldn’t none-the-less,
avoid admiring
the gorgeous scarlet stain juxtaposed against the green jade floor.

The Emperor made a slight
sign and two eunuchs cleaned his eyes.

Listen to me old
Wang-Fô, said the Emperor, dry your tears, it
is not the moment to cry. Your eyes must remain clear for the
purpose that the little light left to them must be put to, a use that
mustn’t be ruined by the mist of sorrow. I do not
want your
death because of rancour, nor for cruelty do I want to see you
suffer. I have another project, old
Wang-Fô. Among my
collection of your paintings I own an admirable but unfinished sketch
in which is reflected the mountains in the river’s estuary,
infinitely reduced it is true but with an evidence of their truth that
overwhelms the thing in itself, like figures looking at themselves
through a glass sphere. But this work is unfinished
Wang-Fô, your masterpiece no more than an outline.
Probably
you were distracted in the moment you sat in a solitary valley by a
bird that flew by, or the boy who chased it or the bird’s
beak,
or the child’s cheek, made you forget the blinking purple
waves
of the sea. You did not finish the shawl of the sea, nor the
hair
of the algae on the rocks.

I want you to use the
hours left to you finishing this painting that
will lock the accumulated secrets of your long life in its
beauty. I do not doubt your hands, so near to being separated
from you, will tremble on the silk and the infinite will penetrate
your work. Nor do I doubt your eyes so near being
annihilated,
will discover relationships at the limit of human
sensibility.
Think that this last desire of mine is a benevolence on my part as I
know the cloth is the only lover you have ever caressed; think of my
offering you some brushes and pigment as akin to a charitable
offering of a lover to a man about to die.

At the lifting of the
small finger of the Emperor’s hand two
eunuchs brought the unfinished painting where Wang-Fô had
sketched the sea and sky. Wang-Fô dried his tears
and
smiled at the sight of the old sketch that brought back memories of his
youth. Everything about the few lines drawn on silk testified
to
a freshness of soul old Wang-Fô could no longer aspire to,
but at
the same time it spoke of something essential that was missing—at the
time of its execution Wang-Fô had not contemplated duly the
mountains, nor the rocks that made up its naked flanks nor the water of
the sea that wet them. Nor had he been soaked sufficiently by
the
sadness of twilight.

He chose a brush among
those offered by a slave and began painting
some broad strokes of blue over the water while a eunuch squatted at
his feet and ground colours for him, a task he did rather badly and
Wang-Fô missed Ling more than before.

He began adding a tiny
point of rose to a cloud that rested on the
mountain, then added some wrinkles to the surface of the sea which did
no more than accentuate its serenity. The jade floor on which
he
stood began to become distinctly humid but Wang-Fô, absorbed
in
his work, did not notice.

The fragile boat in the
foreground now filled the whole first plane
of the silk scroll and the sound of oars splashing in the water could
be heard in the distance but came closer and closer and grew louder and
louder, till it filled the hall of the Son of the Sky. Then
it stopped and only the melancholy dripping of the raised oars broke
the imperturbable silence. It had been some time since the
red
irons heated to close old Wang-Fô’s eyes had gone
out and
become cold in the hot coals of the executioner’s brass
bowl. The courtiers, immobilised by the etiquette of the
court,
stood on tip-toe reaching for breath above the waters that filled the
room without walls.

The water finally reached
the Imperial chest and Ling, for it was
Ling who rowed the boat, a tear in one sleeve still un-darned since it
had been ripped that very morning by the soldiers at the inn, wore
around his neck a strange red scarf. Wang-Fô said
to him
with sweetness as he continued to paint: I thought you were
dead.
While thou lives, how could I die ?

He helped his master into
the boat. The green jade ceiling
reflected in the still waters and the braids of the courtiers floated
beside their heads like serpents while the pale head of the Emperor
floated like a lotus above the wetness.

Look my disciple, said
Wang-Fô with melancholy, these poor
unfortunates will drown if they haven’t already, I
didn’t
know there was enough water in the sea to drown an Emperor, what can we
do ?

Don’t worry
master, they will soon be left without even a
memory of having been wet, only the Emperor will retain a bit of marine
bitterness in his heart as memory of this moment.
These
people weren’t made to lose themselves in a painting.

And he added: The sea is
tranquil and the wind favourable.
The marine birds are making their nests; shall we be underway Master,
to a country the other side of the waves ?

Let’s embark,
said the old painter. Wang-Fô took
the tiller and Ling bent over the oars, their cadence filled once
again the room without walls, firm and regular as a
heartbeat.
The water’s level lowered around the majestic vertical rocks
that
turned back into pillars and very soon only puddles on the floor
remained and a little sea foam on the Emperor’s sleeve.

The roll of
painted silk sat on the low table and the boat that
filled its foreground receded slowly in the sea of blue jade invented
by Wang-Fô, until it became so small only Ling’s
red scarf and the Master’s long beard could be divined.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

PRAYER

to My GUARDIAN ANGEL

Angel of God's light,
whom God sends as a companion for me on earth,
protect me from the snares of the devil,
and help me to walk always as a child of God, my Creator.

Angel of God's truth,
whose perfect knowledge serves what is true,
protect me from deceits and temptations.
Help me to know the truth,
and always to live the truth.

Angel of God's love,
who praises Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
who sacrificed His
life for love of us,
sustain me as I learn the ways of Divine love,
of sacrificial generosity,
of meekness and lowliness of heart.

Thank You, my heavenly friend,
for your watchfull care.

At the moment of my death,
bring me to heaven,
where the one true God,
Who is light, Truth and Love,
lives and reigns forever and ever.

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used
to go and play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and
there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were
twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms
of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds
sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop
their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are
here !” they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend
the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After
the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his
conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle.
When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

“What are you doing here ?” he cried in a very gruff voice,
and the children ran away.

“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any
one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.”
So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play
on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and
they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall
when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside.
“How happy we were there,” they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little
blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant
it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there
were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful
flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board
it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground
again, and went off to sleep.

The only people who were pleased
were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this
garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all the year
round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white
cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited
the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped
in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots
down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we
must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every
day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke
most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast
as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like
ice.

“I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,”
said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his
cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.”

But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave
golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave
none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was
always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost,
and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely
music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must
be the King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a
little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he
had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the
most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing
over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume
came to him through the open casement. “I believe the Spring
has come at last,” said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and
looked out.

What did he see ?

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the
wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches
of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little
child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again
that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their
arms gently above the children’s heads. The birds were flying
about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through
the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one
corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the
garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that
he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering
all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered
with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above
it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it
bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How
selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring
would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top
of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall
be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He
was really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and
went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were
so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again.
Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears
that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind
him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree.
And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang
on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them
round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him.

And the other children,
when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running
back, and with them came the Spring. “It is your garden
now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe
and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market
at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children
in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant
to bid him good-bye.

“But where is your little companion ?” he said: “the
boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved him the best because
he had kissed him.

“We don’t know,” answered the children; “he
has gone away.”

“You must tell him to be sure and come here tomorrow,”
said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where
he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played
with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never
seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he
longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How
I would like to see him!” he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He
could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched
the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I
have many beautiful flowers,” he said; “but the children
are the most beautiful flowers of all.”

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing.
He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring
asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked.
It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of
the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms.
Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them,
and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden.
He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And
when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said,
“Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of
the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints
of two nails were on the little feet.

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell
me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds
of Love.”

“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell
on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let
me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden,
which is Paradise.”

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant
lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

THE SERMON ON A MOUNTAIN

THE BEATITUDES

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them:

“Blessed are those who recognize they are spiritually helpless.The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

Blessed are those who mourn.They will be comforted.

Blessed are those who are gentle.They will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God’s approval.They will be satisfied.

Blessed are those who show mercy.They will be treated mercifully.

Blessed are those whose thoughts are pure.They will see God.

Blessed are those who make peace.They will be called God’s children.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing what God approves of.The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

Blessed are you when people insult you,persecute you,lie, and say all kinds of evil things about you because of me.Rejoice and be glad because you have a great reward in heaven !

The prophets who lived before you were persecuted in these ways.

God’s People Make a Difference in the World

“You
are salt for the earth. But if salt loses its taste, how will it be
made salty again ? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown
out and trampled on by people.

“You are light for the world. A city cannot be hidden when it is located on a hill. No
one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Instead, everyone who
lights a lamp puts it on a lamp stand. Then its light shines on everyone
in the house. In
the same way let your light shine in front of people. Then they will
see the good that you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Jesus Fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures

“Don’t
ever think that I came to set aside Moses’ Teachings or the Prophets. I
didn’t come to set them aside but to make them come true. I
can guarantee this truth: Until the earth and the heavens disappear,
neither a period nor a comma will disappear from the Scriptures before
everything has come true. So
whoever sets aside any command that seems unimportant and teaches
others to do the same will be unimportant in the kingdom of heaven. But
whoever does and teaches what the commands say will be called great in
the kingdom of heaven.

I
can guarantee that unless you live a life that has God’s approval and
do it more faithfully than the experts in Moses’ Teachings and
Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus Talks about Anger

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Never murder. Whoever murders will answer for it in court.’ But I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer
will answer for it in court.

Whoever calls another believer an
insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls
another believer a fool will answer for it in hellfire.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you, leave your gift at the altar. First go away and make peace with that person. Then come back and offer your gift.Make
peace quickly with your opponent while you are on the way to court with
him. Otherwise, he will hand you over to the judge. Then the judge will
hand you over to an officer, who will throw you into prison. I can guarantee this truth: You will never get out until you pay every penny of your fine.

About Sexual Sin

You have heard that it was said, ‘Never commit adultery.’ But I can guarantee that whoever looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.

So
if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It
is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have all of it
thrown into hell. And
if your right hand leads you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It
is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have all of it go
into hell.It has also been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice.’ But
I can guarantee that any man who divorces his wife for any reason other
than unfaithfulness makes her look as though she has committed
adultery. Whoever marries a woman divorced in this way makes himself
look as though he has committed adultery.

About Oaths

You
have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Never break your oath,
but give to the Lord what you swore in an oath to give him.’ But I tell you don’t swear an oath at all. Don’t swear an oath by heaven, which is God’s throne, or by the earth, which is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, which is the city of the great King. And don’t swear an oath by your head. After all, you cannot make one hair black or white. Simply say yes or no. Anything more than that comes from the evil one.

Love Your Enemies

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.But I tell you not to oppose an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn your other cheek to him as well. If someone wants to sue you in order to take your shirt, let him have your coat too. If someone forces you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to everyone who asks you for something. Don’t turn anyone away who wants to borrow something from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.But I tell you this: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In
this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven. He
makes his sun rise on people whether they are good or evil. He lets rain
fall on them whether they are just or unjust. If you love those who love you, do you deserve a reward ? Even the tax collectors do that ! Are you doing anything remarkable if you welcome only your friends ? Everyone does that ! That is why you must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.